PS 

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UC-NRLF 


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AMY  LOWELL 

Sketches  Biographical  and 
Critical  by 


RICHARD  HUNT 

AND 

ROYALL  H.  SNOW 


•:.-.       ...Gift: 


Copyright,  Mojf'ett,  191G,  Chir.vjn 


AMY  LOWELL 


AMY 

A  Sketch  of  Her  Life  and  Her  Place  in 

Contemporary  American  Literature 

BY  RICHARD  HUNT 

THIS  biographical  resume  of  Miss  Amy  Lowell 
is  given  in  response  to  a  desire  on  the  part  of 
many  readers  "to  know  something  more"  about  the 
poet  and  critic  whose  genius  has  been  such  a  stimu 
lating  element  in  the  modern  poetry  renaissance. 

The  Lowell  family  seems  to  have  had  more  than 
a  normal  quota  of  literary  gentlemen.  The  first  col 
onist,  Percival  Lowell,  a  merchant  of  Bristol,  Somer 
set,  England,  who  arrived  in  Newburyport  in  1637, 
wrote  an  ode  on  the  death  of  Governor  Winthrop 
which  contains  the  following  naive  quatrain: 

"  Here  you  have  Lowell's  loyalty, 

Penned  with  slender  skill, 

And  with  it  no  good  poetry, 

But  certainly  good  will." 

MisY^Lowell's  great-grandfather,  John  Lowell,  a 
di£g£kdescendant  of  this  gentleman,  gained  consider 
able  local  fame  by  his  newspaper  articles  signed  "The 
Boston  Rebel"  and  "The  Norfolk  Farmer." ''The 
best-known  literary  man  in  the  family  was  James 
Russell  Lowell,  the  poet,  who  was  a  cousin  of  Miss 

507580 


'    AMY  LOWELL 

s  gr&M&iiliier; ."  Ms^'I^oweH's  brother,  Presi 
dent  A.  Lawrence  Lowell  of  Harvard  University,  as 
many  people  know,  possesses  the  literary  gift,  as  did 
her  other  brother,  the  late  Professor  Percival  Lowell. 
Jlut,  in  the  long  run,  Miss  Lowell's  ancestors  of  the 
direct  line  have  been  distinguished  chiefly  for  a  gen 
eral  good  standing  in  business  and  the  professions, 
and  for  an  abundant  energy  which  has  led  them  into 
altruistic,  scholarly  or  artistic  avocations.  Her  great 
grandfather,  the  "Boston  Rebel"  already  referred 
to,  was  a  lawyer,  but  he  found  time  not  only  to  con 
tribute  to  the  papers  but  also  to  engage  in  horticul 
tural  pursuits.  His  greenhouse  in  Roxbury,  Mass., 
contained  the  first  orchids  grown  in  America,  ami 
Miss  Lowell  is  still  in  possession  of  a  number  of  large 
azalea  bushes  which  were  brought  to  this  country  and 
presented  to  him  by  the  famous  French  landscape 
gardener  Michaux.  Miss  Lowell's  grandfather,  John 
Amory  Lowell,  a  pioneer  in  the  New  England  cotton 
industry  and  first  Trustee  of  the  now  famous  Lowell 
Institute,  was  also  a  horticulturist  by  avocation,  and 
the  Roxbury  place,  "Broomley  Vale,"  which  he  in 
herited  from  his  father,  was  renowned  for  its  gardens 
and  glass  houses. ' \)n  the  Brookline  place  where  Miss 
Lowell  now  lives,  her  father,  Augustus  Lowell,  car 
ried  on  the  horticultural  traditions  of  the  family. 
Though  he  too  was  a  business  man,  he  found  time 
personally  to  plan  the  extensive  gardening  about  the 
place  and  to  do  much  of  the  superintending  himself. 
At  least  two  qualities  appear  in  Miss  Lowell's 
poetry  which  are  markedly  atavistic;  namely,  th£ 


AMY  LOWELL  *      3 

vigor  of  mind  which  has  ^nngp>r*  kp>r  tn  havp  sn  many 

keen  interests  in  life,  and  her  love  of  gardens  and 
garden  jflowers.  _ 

ThereTiave  been  many  kinds  of  nature  poets,  but 
none  exactly  like  Miss  Lowell.  She  is  the  poet  of  that 
nature  which  is  the  product  of  landscape  gardening 
and  architecture,  As  we  go  through  her  pages,  we  find 
ourselves  in  old  secluded  gardens  where  fountains 
play  into  cool  basins,  paths  wind  among  statues  and 
flowering  shrubbery,  and  marble  steps  lead  to  shady 
garden  seats.  Her  poems  are  sweet-scented  with 
narcissus : 

" a41  the  daffodils 

Are  blowing  and  the  bright  blue  squills." 

And  no  wonder,  with  three  generations  of  horticultur 
ists  behind  her!  She  has  lived  her  whole  life  in  the 
atmosphere  of  ancestral  garden  flowers,  and  the  visi 
tor  at  her  house  to-day  will  notice  the  greenhouses 
and  will  be  delighted  by  the  many  vases  of  flowers 
which  cover  her  tables  and  fill  the  rooms  with  their 
fragrance. 

'  Miss  Lowell's  mother,  wl\o  was  Miss  Katharine 
Bigelow  Lawrence,  daughter  of  Abbott  Lawrence,  at 
one  time  Minister  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  was  an 
accomplished  musician  and  linguist,  speaking  five 
languages,  singing,  and  playing  three  instruments. 

.  Miss  Lowell  was  supposed  to  get  her  early  education 
in  tlie  private  schools,  but  her  real  teacher  was  her 
mother,  and  to  her  we  may  trace  Miss  Lowell's  thor 
ough  grounding  in  the  French  language,  and,  devel- 


i 

\\ 
*  \ 


4  AMY  LOWELL 

oping  from  this,  her  deep  interest  in  French  literature 
and  history,  jf 

Miss  Lowell  was  born  in  Brookline,  Mass.,  Febru- 
ary  9,  1874.  It  was  thirty-six  years  before  her  first 
poem  appeared  in  print,  and  thirty-eight  years  before 
her  first  volume  was  published,  yet  her  career  as  a 
poet  may  be  said  to  have  started  in  childhood  when 
she  began  storing  up  impressions,  to  which  she 
showed  an  early  and  extreme  sensitiveness.!)  The  im 
portance  of  the  years  previous  to  her  recognition  is 
^vident. 

I  The  first  of  the  two  periods  into  which  these  years 
were  naturally  divided  extended  from  early  child 
hood  to  the  year  1902,  and  was  the  period  of  uncon-' 
scious  assimilation  and  of  finding  herself.  She  wrote 
verses  when  she  was  thirteen,  and  at  an  early  age  had 
vague  aspirations  toward  story-writing.  Her  literary 
impulses,  however,  indicated  nothing  precocious,  as 
they  were  still  indeterminate  an£t-b#^np  means  occu 
pied  first  place  in  her  thoughts.  ^Her  energies  found 
an  outlet  for  the  most  part  in  such  healthy  pastimes 
as  tennis  and  horseback  riding,  in  her  devotion  to  the 
animals  on  her  father's  place,  and  in  reading  many 
books  in  the  large  family  library. 

When  she  was  eight  years  old  she  was  taken  to 
Europe  and  was  whirled  in  true  American  style 
through  Scotland,  England,  France,  Belgium,  Hol 
land,  Italy,  Germany,  Norway,  Denmark  and  - 
Sweden.  Her  mind  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the 
new  and  swiftly  changing  impressions^some  of  which, 
enhanced  by  such  imaginary  fears  as  all  children 


o 
AMY  LOWELL  5 

know,  recurred  for  months  afterward  with  unpleas- 
>  ant  vividness^When  she  was  twenty-one  her  mother 
died,  and  the  next  year  she  went  abroad  again.  The 
winter  of  1897-98  she  passed  on  the  Nile,  and  the 
following  winter  on  a  fruit  ranch  in  El  Cajon,  Cali 
fornia.  This  is  typical  of  the  variety  of  experience 
which  it  has  been  her  good  fortune  to  have  had  since 
childhood.  In  fact,  her  iijmate  New  Englandism  has 
been  tempered  by  much  foreign  travel,  for  the  sum 
mers  of  1899  and  1905  she  again  passed  in  Europe, 
and  during  the  winter  and  spring  of  1908  she  went  to 
Greece  and  Turkey.  After  the  death  of  her  father  in 
1900,  she  purchased  the  family  place  in  Brookline, 
and  for  a  while  devoted  herself  to  educational  and 
library  work  in  the  interests  of  the  town/  But  about 
this  time  she  began  quite  strongly  to  feel  the  poetic 
impulse,  and  definitely  settled  down  in  1902  to  the 
business  of  being  a  poet./^^ 

This  year,  then,  marks  her  entrance  upon  the 
second  period  of  her  artistic  career.  She  had  fully 
decided  that  poetry  was  her  natural  mode  of  expres 
sion,  and  for  eight  long  years  we  find  her  serving  a 
solitary  and  faithful  apprenticeship,  reading  the 
masters,  learning  the  technique  of  poetry,  and  de 
veloping  her  genius  by  constant  exercise*  It  was  a 
discouraging  struggle,  for  she  was  her  only  critic,  but 
to  this  fact  is  undoubtedly  due  much  of  her  individu 
ality  and  excellence.  Spending  her  time  mostly  be 
tween  Brookline  and  her  summer  place  in  Dublin, 
N.H.,  she  wrote  many  poems,  but  resolutely  post 
poned  all  publication  till  she  should  be  quite  sure  of 


6  AMY  LOWELL 

herself.  Her  first  published  poem  appeared  in  the 
"Atlantic  Monthly,"  for  August,  1910.  Two  years 
later  her  first  volume  of  poetry  came  out. 

"A  Dome  of  Many-Coloured  Glass"  was  a  typical 
first  book  in  that  it  contained  various  poems  o?  the 
sort  which  every  poet  must  write  before  fully  realiz 
ing  his  own  individuality.  But  it  is  this  very  fact 
which  gives  the  volume  much  of  its  human  quality. 
In  Miss  Lowell's  later  books  this  quality  is  more 
veiled  by  the  Imagistic  method,  but  the  moment  we 
recognize  the  method  we  find  ourselves  penetrating 
to  the  human  part  of  heir.  Many  of  the  poems  in  her 
first  book  foreshadowed  the  vividness  of  image  pre 
sentation,  the  firmness  of  touch,  and  the  imaginative, 
power,  which  make  her  later  volumes  so  peculiarly 
her  own. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  volume  opens  with  a 
sort  of  free  verse  poem.  Yet,  when  this  poem  was 
written,  vers  libre  had  not  broken  into  the  magazines 
and  "Imagisjn"  was  a  word  not  heard  of.  Miss 
Lowell  had  already  been  reaching  certain  independ 
ent  conclusions  about  tendencies  in  the  poetic  art 
and  had  experimented  in  the  free  forms  and  the  possi 
bilities  of  a  more  vivid  imagery.  One  of  the  poems  she 
had  written,  but  not  published,  was  "In  a  Garden." 

Upon  visiting  England  again  in  1913  it  was  natural 
that  she  should  have  been  drawn  to  the  Iniagis,ts, 
just  then  crystallizing  into  a  school.  She  met  Ezra 
Pound,  and  soon  discovered  that  the  tenets  of  the 
Imagists  were  essentially  the'-  same  which  she  had 
evolved  from  her  own  consideration  of  the  subject. 


AMY  LOWELL  7 

For  the  strengthening  of  these  tenets  in  the  public 
mind,  she  agreed  to  join  forces  with  the  Imagists. 
"In  a  Garden"  was  included  in  the  first  Imagist  An 
thology,  "Des  Imagistes,"  published  in  the  spring  of 
1914  under  the  imprint  of  Albert  and  Charles  Boni, 
New  York.  Since  then  she  has  been  a  regular  con 
tributor  to  the  annual  Imagist  AntKolp^y,  "Some 
Imagist  Poets,"  published  by  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company,  in  1915-16-17.  But  no  one  who  is  at  all 
acquainted  with  Miss  Lowell's  poetry  can  think  of 
her  primarily  as  an  Imagist.  She  is  primarily  herself. 

Before  the  appearance  of  her  second  book  Miss 
Lowell  had  occasion  to  visit  Europe  again,  this  time 
partly  in  behalf  of  Imagism,  which  was  growing  by 
leaps.  About  this  time,  also,  she  undertook  by  re 
quest  the  authorized  translation  of  Edmond  Ros 
tand's  "Pierrot  qui  Pleure  et  Pierrot  qui  Rit,"  which 
was  given  as  an  opera  in  Boston  in  February,  1915, 
with  Maggie  Teyte  in  the  role  of  Columbine. 

Miss  Lowell's  second  volume  of  poetry,  "Sword 
Blades  and  Poppy  Seed,"  published  in  1914,  proved 
to  be  one  of  the  literary  events  of  the  year.  /  Though 
it  is  her  first  volume  to  contain  vqrs  libre  and  Imagism 
fully  conscious  of  itself  as  such,  there  is  ample  evi» 
dence  of  her  respect  for  the  classics.  We  find  fre« 
verse  and  sonnets;  pictorial  pieces  and  lyrics;  long 
narratives  in  rhymed  couplets  or  stanzas,  with  a 
flavor  of  romance  and  mystery;  imagistic  cameos; 
and,  perhaps  most  important  of  all,  the  first  exam 
ples  of  "pcilvj)liojikj--piT)se''  which  have  ever  ap 
peared  in  this  language. 


8  AMY  LOWELL 

It  has  now  been  amply  proved  that  free  verse  is 
not  a  new  thing  in  poetry.  But  "polyphonic  prose" 
is  new  and  never  pretended  otherwise.  True,  it  has 
certain  French  prototypes  in  the  work  of  Paul  Fort 
and  Saint-Pol-Roux,  but  it  is  a  debatable  question 
whether  these  would  ever  have  affected  our  literature 
had  not  Miss  Lowell  detected  their  possibilities.//The 
name  "polyphonic  prose,"  which  Miss  Lowell  owes 
to  Mr.  John  Gould  Fletcher,  refers  merely  to  fhe 
prose  form  in  which  this  kind  of  poetry  is  printed. 
The  rhythm  of  "polyphonic  prose"  is  an  ever-chang 
ing  succession  of  all  the  rhythms  to  be  found  existing 
by  themselves  in  simpler  poetry^  There  are  the  met 
ric  rhythms  (dactylic,  iambic,  trochaic,  anapestic, 
etc.),  and  the  free  verse  rhythms  (called  cadences). 
Each  of  these  should  be  employed  in  its  proper  place 
to  express  the  particular  mood  or  situation  or  effect 
required.  Sometimes  there  are  key  rhythms  which 
recur  at  intervals  like  visible  parts  of  a  thread  woven 
through  the  whole  fabric. !(  Rhythmically,  "poly 
phonic  prose"  is  the  most  elastic  of  all  the  poetic 
forms,  and  is  especially  adapted  to  the  treatment  of 
subjects  having  many  phases  or  aspects,  or  epic  or 
dramatic  subjects,  or  subjects  that  need  to  be  pre 
sented  in  a  series.  The  rhythmic  effer-t  isorohest.ral. 
not  simple.  In  "polyphonic  prose"  we  find  that 
rhyme  also  is  employed  in  a  new  way.  Instead  of 
being  an  emphatic  or  special  part  of  the  poem  or  a 
convenient  device,  like  the  bars  in  music,  it  occurs 
unexpectedly  and  subtly,  ridding  the  movement  of 
all  sound  monotony.  This  is  one  of  the  facts  which 


AMY  LOWELL  9 

make  "polyphonic  prose"  the  most  naturaLIosm 
which  has  yet  been  evolved,  allowing  the  poet,  as  it 
does,  to  adapt  his  music  at  will  to  each  new  feeling 
and  situation,  and  to  cover  all  phases  of  a  complex 
and  many-sided  subject. 

Many  people  enjoyed  '"Sword  Blades  and  Poppy 
Seejillwho  had  never  cared  much  for  poetry.  This 
is  undoubtedly  because,  in  such  poems  as  "The 
Great  Adventure  of  Max  Breuck"  and  "The  Book 
of  Hours  of  Sister  Clotilde,"  Miss  Lowell  proved  her 
self  an  excellent  story-teller,  and  because  the  picture 
element  in  some  of  her  other  poems  pleases  the  eye 
in  much  the  same  way  that  pictures  themselves  do. 
-For  this  reason  there  are  many  artists  among  Miss 
Lowell's  admirers.  In  her  power  to  see  and  reveal 
pictures  in^alHheir  dazzling  color  and  connotation  is 
implied  a  closeT>ending~tb  nature  which  poets  of  the 
preceding  epochs  have  never  developed  to  quite  the 
Imagistic  degree.  It  requires  a  sort  of  scientific  im- 
a'gl.n.atfionr  flm^  this  is  one  of  Miss  Lowell's  very  spe 
cial  gifts.  In  her  late  brother,  Dr.  Percival  Lowell, 
the  famous  astronomer  and  discoverer  of  the  canals 
on  Mars,  we  find  the  same  gift  exercised  in  scientific 
rather  than  in  artistic  directions. 
(  During  the  winter  of  1915-16  Miss  Lowell  gave 
many  lectures  on  poetry  in  Boston,  New  York  and 
Chicago,  and  published  a  number  of  critical  articles 
as  well  as  poems  in  the  magazines.  For  some  years 
she  had  been  drinking  deep  at  the  wells  of  French 
poetry,) /After  the  publication  of  her  second  book  she 
was  called  upon  to  answer  so  many  questions  that 


10  AMY  LOWELL 

it  can  almost  be  said  she  had  the  business  of  being  a 
critic  thrust  upon  her.  Her  critical' studies  of  the 
French  poets,  and  her  own  thorough  schooling  in 
creative  work,  had  made  her  well  fitted  for  the  task. 
Her  third  book,  then,  was  a  book  of  critical  essays, 
"Six  French  Poets.'//  Few  criticisms  of  to-day  are 
at  once  so  penetrating  and  such  good  reading,  —  for 
Miss  Lowell  makes  us  live  and  breathe  with  each  of 
her  six  poets,  and  finds  room  for  many  shrewd  and 
entertaining  observations  about  the  ways  of  poets  in 
general.  Many  pages  in  the  back  of  the  book  are  de 
voted  to  her  translations  of  the  more  important 
poems  of  each  man.  This  in  itself  is  a  valuable  con 
tribution  to  our  literature,  and  many  of  her  transla-  - 
tions  will  doubtless  become  standard. 
''  Miss  Lowell's jiext  volume,  one_of  poetry^"  A fpnr 
Women  andGhosts,'^  was  published  in  the  autumn 
or  l^itjT^is^tated  in  the  prefacg»Jt  nrmtg.msLJM»ftpft^ 
tives  and  pictures"onlY,  though  these  terms  have  been 
stretched  to  allow  a  variety  of  poetic  effects.  There 
is  pleasing  evidence  that  her  jmagistic  powers  have 
not  waned;  her  touch  has  grown  firmer  without  los 
ing  its  delicacy;  and  she  has  developed  "polyphonic 
prose"  to  a  finer  point.  Among  the  most  notable 
poems  are  "The  Cross-Roads,"  "Malmaison,"  "The 
Hammers"  anolJlPat terns/'  The  "Cross-Roads"  is 
a  powerful  polyphonic  in  which  the  dramatic  effects 
are  strangely  secured  through  ghostly  atmospheres. 
The  next  two  are  long  narratives,  "Malmaison"  be 
ing  in  "polyphonic  prose"  and  "The  Hammers"  in 
a  fluent,  rhymed  vers  libre,  but  added  to  the  purely 


AMY  LOWELL  11 

narrative  element  is  an  epic  and  dramatic  element 
which   has  never   heretofore  been  successfully  em 
ployed  by  an  American  poet.    "Patterns,"  which  is 
lyric  in  feeling,  is  a  poem  of  notable~poweTaiid  beauty,  f  i>» 
and  must  always  live  as  a  refutation  of  tKe  claim  that   i 
Imagism  "does  not  reach  the  emotions."    In  addi-7 
tion  to  these  should  be  mentioned  the  four  poems,  I 
composing  "The  Overgrown  Pasture"  group,  which  1 
are  remarkable  for  their  adaptation  of  authentic  New  1 
England  or  Yankee  dialect  to  rhythmic  free  verse.   \ 
One  would  not  suppose  that  dialect  could  be  true  to 
life  and  also  rhythmic,  but  it  is  —  here.   The  innate  ^ 
tragedy  of  these  pictures  of  New  England  jcojjji  try  lifp 
is  the  more  telling  because  of  the  utter  simplicity  and 
realism  with  which  they  are  drawn. 
''  Miss  Lowell's  fifth  and  latest  book^  "Tendencies 
in  Modern  American  Poetry,"  published  in  October, 
1917,  is,  as  the  name  implies,  another  book  of  critical 
essays.   Everybody  knows  the  feeling  which  is  some 
times  provoked  by  absolute  simplicity  in  a  poem;  the 
reader  exclaims  "Why,  I  could  have  written  it  my 
self!"    -knowing  well  that  these  simple  effects  are 
the  very  hardest  to  achieve.  This  same  feeling  is  pro 
voked  by  Miss  Lowell's  new  book  of  criticism;  the 
reader  wonders  why  the  new  poetry  movement  has 
hitherto  seemed  such  a  confusing  jumble.   Thanks  to 
the  perspective  afforded  by  a  few  years,  and  to  Miss 
Lowell,  the  true  and  significant  aspects  of  the  new 
movement  are  being  separated  from  the  false  and 
meaningless  aspects,  the  "fringe"  is  being  clipped, 
and  the  loose  ends  are  being  pulled  out  and  thrown 


12  AMY  LOWELL 

away.   As  we  have  remarked,  it  seems  so  simple  — 
when  analyzed  by  Miss  Lowell. 

She  sees  in  the  new  movement  only  three  vital  ten 
dencies,  and  chooses  six  poets  who  best  exemplify 
these  tendencies.  They  are  Robinson  and  Frost  (rep 
resenting  realism,  direct  speech  and  the  non-mili 
tant  spirit  in  art),  Masters  and  Sandburg  (represent 
ing  realism,  direct  speech  and  the  reforming,  militant 
spirit),  and  John  Gould  Fletcher  and  "H.  D."  (rep 
resenting  the  Imagist  principles,  romanticism,  and 
that  peace  of  mind  as  regards  social  and  ethical  ideas 
for  which  the  militants  are  still  fighting).  This  vol 
ume  is  the  first  which  has  appeared  dealing  with  the 
modern  poetry  renaissance,  and  for  this  reason  is  ex-, 
tremely  important.  It  not  only  elucidates  the  new 
movement  with  masterly  good  sense,  but  is  valu 
able  as  a  series  of  critical  biographies  of  six  of  our  most 
important  living  poets.  In  preparing  this  book  Miss 
Lowell  used  facts  furnished  and  authorized  by  each 
poet  himself,  and  has  carefully  analyzed  the  poetry 
of  each,  giving  copious  quotations. 

What  is  the  all-inclusive  quality  which  has  enabled 
Miss  Lowell  to  exert  such  a  stimulating  efJWt  upon 
thp  minds  of  rnntemporary  poetry  lovers?  She  is  con 
cerned  with  "the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in 
tjie  world."  It  is  her  inherent  New  England  culture 
expressing  itself  in  terms  of  the  new  age.  Provincial 
ism  and  Puritanism  have  given  way  to  cosmopoli 
tanism  and  the  liberal  outlook,  without  any  sacrifice 
oFgood  literary  taste  and  respect  for  the  best  tradi 
tions//  The  New  England  poet  has  always  been  fore- 


AMY  LOWELL  13 

most  in  representing  the  peculiar  spirit  of  his  time. 
It  was  the  New  England  poet  who  not  only  nurtured 
the  traditions  of  the  mother  country  before  America 
had  realized  its  nationalism,  but  who  first  figured 
forth  the  objects  and  ideas  which  were  peculiarly 
American.  Coming  down  to  our  own  day,  "it  is  (to 
quote  from  Miss  Lowell  herself)  an  interesting  com 
mentary  on  the  easy  scorn  with  which  non-Ne"w  Eng- 
landers  regard  New  England  that  two  of  the  six  poets 
(whom  she  discusses  as  the  most  significant  of  the 
day)  should  be  of  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  New 
England."  These  two  are,  of  course,  Robinson  and 
Frost.  There  is  a  third  whom  Miss  Lowell  does  not 
mention,  namely,  herself. 

1917. 


AMY  LOWELL 

The  Last  Three  Books 
BY  ROYALL  H.  SNOW 

IN  the  career  of  every  poet  there  comes  a  time 
of  fullest  expansion,  a  time  when  the  construc 
tive  work  is  all  done  and  after  which  further  pro 
duction,  fine  though  it  may  be,  represents  only  a 
tilling  of  old  fields  which  have  already  produced 
richly.  With  Miss  Lowell  that  time  has  not  come. 
Each  new  volume  of  hers  shows  the  technical  mas 
tery  of  those  that  had  preceded  it :  each  has  the  same 
fire  and  color  in  its  phrases,  each  the  same  rhyth 
mical  control,  each  the  same  sheer  instinct  for  the 
beauty  of  things;  but  every  volume  reveals  this  old 
technical  power  applied  to  new  thehies,  moving  out 
and  making  new  fields  her  own.  . 

It  was  with  reason  that  Professor  William  Lyon 
Phelps  declared  in  the  "Bookman"  that  "the  versa 
tility  of  Amy  Lowell  is  so  notable  that  it  would  be 
vain  to  predict  the  nature  of  her  future  production, 
or  to  attempt  to  set  a  limit  to  her  range.  ...  In  spite 
of  her  assured  position  in  contemporary  literature, 
one  feels  that  her  career  is  only  beginning."  There 
had  been  indications  in  "Men,  Women,  and  Ghosts" 
of  Miss  Lowell's  control  of  the  novel  verse  form  of 
Polyphonic  Prose;  there  had  been  no  hint  that  she 


AMY  LOWELL  15 

was  so  soon  to  apply  it,  as  she  did  in  "Can  Grande's 
Castle"  to  themes  of  such  significance  as  the  meeting 
of  Western  civilization  with  that  of  the  East,  or  of 
the  crumbling  of  great  empires  before  the  inroads  of 
time.   "Can  Grande's  Castle"  warned  us  that  Miss 
Lowell  had  preserved  the  flexibility  of  her  genius, 
yet,  after  its  epic  sweep,  we  scarcely  expected  that 
she  could  turn  at  once  to  such  genuine  and  delicate 
lyricism  as  goes  to  make  up  "  Pictures  of  the  Floating 
World."    And  the  next,  volume  also  carried  its  sur 
prise  and  thrill.    We  knew  Miss  Lowell's  power  of 
recreating  the  spirit  of  other  times  and  places:  we 
did  not  expect  an  entire  volume  devoted  to  evoking 
the  spirit  of  vanished  peoples.   And  yet  that  is  what 
her  latest  book,  "Legends,"  does,  and  does  superbly. 
But  to  turn  back  to  "Can  Grande's  Castle,"  the 
first  of  these  remarkable  volumes  to  appear.    In 
"Can  Grande's  Castle"  there  were  only  four  poems, 
all  written  in  polyphonic  prose.   Presenting  as  it  did 
only  polyphonic  prose,  and  polyphonic  prose  carried 
to  its  farthest  development,  it  was  a  provocative 
book,   fruitful   of   discussion.     The   opening   poem, 
"Sea-Blue  and  Blood-Red,"  has  for  its  subject  the 
great  and  tragic  love  affair  between  Lord  Nelson  and 
Lady  Hamilton,  but  beneath  the  swift  and  brilliant 
narrative,  rolls  an  undertone,  now  sharp,  now  sono 
rous  —  the  dramatic  clash  of  desire  and  duty  which  is 
the  real  theme  of  the  poem.   Two  excellent  portraits 
are  here,  the  sturdy-hearted,  impulsive  Admiral,  and 
"quivering,    blood-swept,    vivid   Lady    Hamilton." 
They  are  overdone  in  no  particular,  they  are  simply 


16  AMY  LOWELL 

understood.  Starting  in  the  revolution-rocked  King 
dom  of  the  Two  Sicilies  with  the  red  heart  of  Vesu 
vius  smoking  behind  them,  their  story  works  inevit 
ably  through  the  fire  of  their  personal  triumph  to  the 
tragedy  of  Trafalgar.  Vivid  stuff  it  is  of  which  this 

is  made. 

But  rich  as  is  "Sea-Blue  and  Blood-Red,"  to  my 
mind  the  real  significance  of  "Can  Grande's  Castle" 
lies  in  two  poems:  "The  Bronze  Horses"  and  "Guns 
as  Keys:  and  the  Great  Gate  Swings."  At  this  point 
it  would  be  possible  to  cavil  on  various  matters,  to 
ask  if  sometimes  opulence  has  not  been  pushed  to 
over-richness,  or  rhetorical  emphasis  to  shrillness; 
but  to  raise  such  questions  (very  important  though 
they  may  be  so  far  as  form  is  concerned)  would  be  to 
distract  attention  from  the  really  significant  point 
about  these  two  poems.  Do  they  mark  the  way  to 
the  modern  epic?  The  epic  as  written  by  Homer  can 
never  be  written  again:  the  balance  of  naivete  and 
refinement  which  produced  him  belongs  to  the  child 
hood  of  the  world.  In  Dante  and  Milton,  later  writ 
ers  of  great  epics,  there  is  a  marked  increase  of  the 
subjective  element.  The  subjective  is  characteristic 
of  the  poetry  of  sophisticated  peoples  —  carried  far, 
it  is  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the  original  epic.  If  we  are 
to  continue  in  the  subjective  vein,  as  we  must  unless 
by  a  miracle  the  world  can  become  young  again,  the 
question  arises:  are  we  thereby  automatically  for 
bidden  epic  themes?  Perhaps  the  answer  to  that 
question  lies  in  two  of  the  poems  of  "  Can  Grande's 
Castle." 


AMY  LOWELL  17 

"Guns  as  Keys:  and  the  Great  Gate  Swings"  deals 
7  with  the  opening  of  Japan  by  Commodore  Perry, 
with  the  meeting  of  two  civilizations ;  surely  a  theme 
epic  in.  sweep  if  there  ever  was  one.  But  whereas  in 
the  old  epic  attention  would  have  been  focussed  on 
the  bare  narrative  of  a  sequence  of  events,  in  Miss 
Lowell's  poem  there  is  not  only  a  genuine  power  in 
the  handling  of  dramatic  action,  but  there  is  also  a 
heavy  emphasis  on  the  play  of  two  contrasting 
national  temperaments:  on  the  subjective  elements 
which  lie  before  and  beyond  the  action.  It  is  that 
attitude  of  approach,  rather  than  the  form,  or  the 
pointillistic  technique,  wrhich  is«  significant  in  Miss 
Lowell's  handling  of  these  themes.  It  points  the 
\vay  to  the  lyrical  as  opposed  to  the  austere  epic. 

But  quite  aside  from  its  literary  interest,  "Guns 
as  Keys"  is  excellent  reading  for  itself,  with  its  deli 
cate  handling  of  the  lacquer-work  civilization  of 
Japan  as  an  opposite  of  the  bluff  Yankee  nature 
which  sends  steam  frigates  shouldering  against  dis 
tant  seas  in  pursuit  of  trade.  "Hedge  Island,"  an 
other  of  the  four  poems  in  the  volume,  good  as  it  is  in 
its  way,  cannot  compare  with  "Guns  as  Keys"  in 
power.  It  is  only  in  "The  Bronze  Horses,"  the  last 
poem  in  the  book,  that  we  find  anything  comparable 
to  "Guns  as  Keys."  In  "The  Bronze  Horses"  Miss 
Lowell  again  treats  a  major  theme,  for  these  bronze 
L  horses,  which  have  had  so  varied  a  career  in  the 
world,  become  in  the  poem  the  symbol  of  eternal 
time  treading  down  the  centuries.  Untouched  and 
serene  they  look  down  upon  the  greatness  and  decay 


18  AMY  LOWELL 

of  three  empires.  They  see  a  Roman  triumph;  they 
see  Byzantium  sacked  by  the  crusaders;  they  see 
Venice  mistress  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  Venice 
impotent.  The  poem  is  largely  conceived,  and,  if  it 
be  not  so  firmly  handled  as  "  Guns  as  Keys,"  it  is  be 
cause  the  richness  of  detail  sometimes  blurs  the  main 
outlines  of  the  poem.  For  Miss  Lowell  has  a  fine 
passion  for  the  vivid  and  sparkling.  It  is  small  won 
der  Professor  John  Livingston  Lowes  declared  (in 
"Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry")  that  '"Can 
Grande's  Castle'  challenges  through  its  vividness, 
and  contagious  zest  in  life  and  color,  an  unreluctant 
admiration"  —  a  vividness  and  zest  he  feels  native 
to  Miss  Lowell. 

To  some  readers  who,  in  spite  of  the  fineness  of 
"Guns  as  Keys,"  could  not  escape  a  lurking  fear  in 
spired  by  the  intricate  novelty  of  the  form  and  the 
very  opulence  of  "Can  Grande's  Castle"  as  a  whole, 
Miss  Lowell's  next  book,  "Pictures  of  the  Floating 
World,"  published  in  1919,  "came  aslTcleTIghTr  It  is 
6~ne  of  tho^e  rare  volumes  that  you  can  pick  up  and 
open  at  random,  —  sure  of  -coming  upon  beautiful 
pages;  it  is  one  of  those  still  more  rare  volumes  to 
which  you  can  return,  sure  that  the  glamorous  il 
lusion  of  its  poetry  will  not  be  dispelled  by  re 
reading. 

"Pictures  of  the  Floating  World"  is  purely  a  book 
of  lyrics.  The  first  two  sections  of  the  volume,  "  Lac-  > 
quer  Prints"  and  "Chinoiseries"  deal  with  Japanese 
and  Chinese  themes.   They  are  delicately  done,  cap 
turing  the  fragility  of  atmosphere  the  poet  seeks. 


AMY  LOWELL  19 

The  "Lacquer  Prints"  particularly  are,  in  their 
briefness,  saturate  with  the  pure  emotion  of  beauty. 
The  rest  of  the  book,  and  the  greater  part  of  it,  deals 
with  subjects  nearer  home:  people,  places,  the  poet 
herself. 

The  technique  of  these  poems  is  that  of  the  true 
modernist.  The  poet  perceives  the  world  keenly  and 
sensitively:  she  presents  it  objectively  to  the  reader. 
All  the  overtones  of  deep  feeling,  that  sine  qua  non  of 
poetry,  are  present,  but  they  do  not  crowd  into  the 
poems  in  blurred  comments  and  moralistic  tag-end 
ings.  The  poems  are  distinct  and  brilliant  in  their  > 
presentation  of  surfaces:  but  it  is  a  dull  reader  indeed 
who  does  not  feel  the  surge  of  emotion  beneath.  A 
fine  piece  in  this  respect  is  "Vernal  Equinox"  with 
its  building  up  of  the  feeling  of  spring  out  of  the  scent 
of  hyacinths  and  the  quivering  of  candles  in  the  warm 
wet  wind,  until  the  emotion  of  the  poem  breaks  out 
in  that  poignant  last  line.  "The  Letter,"  which  also 
has  justly  been  a  favorite  with  readers  of  poetry,  is  a 
companion  piece  in  emotion  to  "Vernal  Equinox." 
Again  it  is  the  fierceness  of  longing  for  the  absent  one 
which  gives  the  poem  its  intensity,  and  it  is  the  rhyth 
mically  objective  treatment  which  gives  it  force.  We 
feel  with  the  poet  that  while  all  about  is  drenched  in 
the  scalding  lustre  of  the  moon,  such  love-emotion 
cannot  be  compressed  into  the  "Little  cramped 
-words"  of  a  letter.  And  this  ability  which  Miss 
Lowell  has  of  making  the  reader  identify  himself 
with  the  poem  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  her  power.  No 
reader  of  her  books  can  be  merely  an  onlooker  at  a 


.80.' 


AMY  LOWELL 


display  of  feeling  —  he  is  drawn  irresistibly  in  and 
made  a  sharer  of  the  poetic  emotion. 

"Solitaire,"  with  its  elfish  delight  in  the  uncon- 
strainedly  lovely,  has  a  charm  peculiar  to  itself,  and 
"Madonna  of  the  Evening  Flowers"  is  so  well 
known  as  scarcely  to  need  the  bush  of  praise.  Her 
garden  is  always  an  inspiration  to  Miss  Lowell  and 
in  the  "Madonna  of  the  Evening  Flowers,"  where  it 
is  made  the  setting  for  a  poem  of  direct  personal  feel 
ing,  she  has  written  one  of  her  best  lyrics.  As  another 
poet  has  said  of  it:  " 'Madonna  of  the  Evening  Flow 
ers,'  a  poem  so  peaceful  that  to  read  it  is  to  feel  rest." 
There  are  other  poems,  widely  varied  in  nature,  which 
deserve  comment  there  is  not  space  to  give —  "Ve> 
nius  Transiens,"  "Summer  Rain,"  "On  a  Certain 
Critic,"  "A  Shower  "and  many  more.  And  perhaps 
better  than  any  of  these  I  have  mentioned,  there  is 
" Appuldurcombe  Park"  with  its  fundamental  pas 
sion  and  despair.  But  with  this  volume  one  might 
praise  endlessly ! 

I    /"  The  high  quality  of  Miss  Lowell's  work  has  brought 
Vt  vher  recognition  throughout  the  country.   The  events 
M^  lof  her  life  during  these  years  have  been  mainly  bound 
lup  with  her  constant  literary  work,  original  and  crit- 
^f          igal,  and  with  the  honors  it  has  brought  her.  Numer 
ous  universities,  anxious  to  learn  something  of  the 
new  movement,  have  asked  her  to  read  and  the  suc 
cess  of  these  readings,  emphasizing  as  they  do  h: 
spirited  fashion  the  fact  that  the  new  poetry  is  meant 
for  the  ear,  has  been  remarkable.  Miss  Lowel£s-mad^ 
ingj^an  art  in  itself,  a  complementary  art  to  that  of 


AMY  LOWELL  21 

Jierpoetry.  No  one  who  has  heard  her  can  ever  for- 
/get  the  experience.  Twice  Miss  Lowell  has  been  in 
vited,  by  Tufts  in  May,  1918,  and  by  Columbia  in 
June,  1920,  to  give  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem.  By 
Columbia  she  was  made  an  honorary  member  of  the 
New  York  Delta  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  - 
an  honor  very  rarely  accorded  to  a  woman.  And  in 
the  same  month  she  was  given  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Literature  by  Baylor  University  of  Waco,  Texas. 
" Legends. "  the  laffflt  of  MJHS  Lrnv-pU'R  books,  ap 
peared  in  May,  1921.  A  legend,  as  she  makes  clear 
in  her  preface,  means  not  simply  a  story,  but  an  ex 
pression  of  man's  curiosity  about  both  the  natural 
world  and  his  own  strange  mind:  in  the  primitive 
ages  he  is  conscious  of  this  curiosity,  and,  as  a 
measure  of  true  or  merely  speculative  understanding 
comes  to  him,  he  expresses  it  through  the  medium  of 
a  legend.  This  need  of  explaining  external  phenom 
ena,  or  unaccountable  action,  is  the  basis  of  the  true 
legend  everywhere.  In  Miss  Lowell's  "A  Legend  of 
Porcelain,"  for  example,  the  disasters  which  fall  on 
the  porcelain  maker  are  attributed  to  the  interven 
tion  of  demons  —  an  intervention  only  possible  be 
cause  his  daughter  has  neglected  certain  supersti 
tious  rites.  "Memorandum  Confided  by  a  Yucca  to 
a  Passion- Vine "  is  based  upon  another,  and  very 
common  type  of  legend.  Primitive  man  saw  that 
_there  were  spots  on  the  clear  silver  of  the  moon  and 
felt  the  need  of  explaining  the  phenomenon;  in  this 
case  the  spots  are  attributed  to  the  marks  made  by 
the  paws  of  a  satyr-fox  who  attacked  the  moon-god  - 


22  AMY  LOWELL 

dess  on  her  descent  to  earth.    We  have  a  better  un 
derstanding  now  of  the  shadows  in  the  moon,  but' 
such   legends  are   perennially  attractive;  they   are 
rooted  in  our  race  consciousness. 

The  first  poem  in  the  volume,  "Memorandum 
Confided  by  a  Yucca  to  a  Passion- Vine,"  is  based,  as 
I  mentioned,  on  the  fox  story,  with  the  Peru  of  the 
Incas  for  a  setting.  It  is  done  with  Miss  Lowell's 
customary  use  of  sumptuous  detail,  but  with  a  touch 
(as  the  title  would  indicate)  of  faintly  quizzical  hu 
mor  at  the  adventures  of  the  love-distracted  fox  seek 
ing  —  alas!  —  the  moon.  The  scenes  in  The  Temple 
of  the  Sun  are  typical  of  Miss  Lowell's  workmanship. 
The  garden  is  rich,  not  with  natural  flowers,  but  with, 
blossoms  and  fruits  carefully  wrought  out  of  precious 
metals  and  jewels.  Even  the  butterflies  are  of  tur 
quoise  and  the  Wizards  of  silver.  The  Temple  itself 
is  of  gold,  so  built  that  the  light  of  the  sun  bursts  at 
daybreak,  while  the  priests  chant,  on  the  image  of 
the  god.  The  sunrise  scene  at  The  Temple  is  one  of 
the  best  parts  of  the  poem.  Complementing  it  are 
the  fine  passages  describing  the  dance  of  the  Inca 
mothers  in  the  garden  at  night,  and  the  descent  of 
the  luminous  moon-goddess  into  the  centre  of  the 
ring  they  form. 

The  North  American  Indian  is  represented  by  two 
legends.  "Funeral  Song  for  the  Indian  Chief  Black 
bird"  is,  I  believe,  very  close  to  the  Indian  spirit  in. 
its  picturing  of  the  burial  of  the  dead  chieftain  on 
his  living  horse.  But  important  as  it  may  be  in  an 
effort  to  preserve  some  memory  of  a  dying  race,  the 


AMY  LOWELL  23 

"Funeral  Song"  is  not  equal  in  imaginative  or  sym- 
I  bolic  power  to  the  other  poem  in  this  group.  "Many 
Swans"  (which,  by  the  by,  was  the  Columbia  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  poem)  is  written  in  a  form  of  polyphonic 
prose  modified  from  its  extreme  development  in 
"The  Bronze  Horses."  The  rhythm  is  flowing, 
rather  than  staccato,  and  the  rhyme  recurrence  less 
frequent.  With  the  less  obvious  use  of  rhyme  the 
polyphonic  form  seems  to  gain  in  musical  value:  a 
delicate  chiming  is  substituted  for  the  decisive  bell- 
ringing  effect  of  "The  Bronze  Horses."  Scattered 
through  the  poem  are  rhymed  and  unrhymed  free 
.  verse  songs  following  the  Indian  manner  —  some  of 
them  in  fact  being  actual  translations  —  which  vary 
the  metrical  pattern;  "The  Nation's  Drum  has  Fal 
len  Down"  is  one  of  the  finest  lyrics  which  Miss 
Lowell  has  ever  done,  and  in  a  genre  quite  new  to  her. 
Many  Swans  is  the  warrior  who  mounted  to  the  sky 
on  a  ladder  of  arrows  and  forgot  the  earth  for  what 
he  found  there.  But  at  the  time  of  the  spring  salmon- 
running  he  remembered  his  family  and  desired  to  re 
turn.  The  gift,  reluctantly  given  by  the  old  woman 
called  The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky,  which 
he  brought  back  to  earth  with  him,  the  gift  of  ab 
solute  power,  proves  a  gift  of  fire.  Mortals  may  not 
crave  omnipotence  and,  achieving  it,  expect  to  mingle 
unchanged  with  men.  Against  his  will,  wherever 
Many  Swans  goes,  he  brings  destruction;  and,  as 
the  fire  he  brings  sears  those  he  meets,  the  fire  of 
loneliness  sears  him.  At  last  The-One-Who-Walks- 
All-Over-the-Sky  appears:  "Her  eyes  were  moons  for 


24  AMY  LOWELL 

sadness,  and  her  voice  was  like  the  coiling  of  the  sea; " 
and  frees  him  from  the  gift  that  was  a  curse.  Again/ 
this  legend,  in  Miss  Lowell's  hands,  becomes  the  tale 
of  the  extinction  of  the  Indian  races,  one  after  an 
other,  before  the  furious  march  of  superior  strength 
and  overweening  ambition. 

"Witch- Woman,"  also  an  Indian  legend  but  this 
time  of  Yucatan,  is  one  of  the  best  poems  of  the  book 
and,  for  that  matter,  that  Miss  Lowell  has  ever 
written.  All  her  power  of  sharp  visualization  is 
needed  to  bring  out  the  potentialities  of  the  scene 
where  the  witch  dances  naked  in  the  moonlight  on 
the  cliff  edge  with  the  sea  curling,  white-fanged,  far 
below;  and  Miss  Lowell  makes  the  most  of  her  m?; 
terial  with  a  truly  soul-satisfying  adequacy.  Again, 
at  the  moment  when  the  flesh  falls  away  and  there 
is  left  a  skeleton  dancing,  sharp  against  the  red  moon, 
all  the  delicacy  of  her  touch  is  needed  to  keep  the 
poem  from  shifting  into  the  grotesque.  But  the  fine 
ness  of  touch  is  there  —  the  macabre  is  Miss  Lowell's 
forte  —  and  the  poem  is  kept  with  sure  artistry  in  the 
correct  tone.  And  I  cannot  but  mention  the  last  two. 
lines  of  the  poem.  They  are  simplicity  itself  and 
they  are  pure  inspiration.  One  has  to  look  far  in 
English  poetry  for  a  conclusion  which  sums  up  so 
perfectly  and  so  powerfully  the  body  of  the  poem  it 
ends.  The  conclusion  of  Browning's  "My  Last 
Duchess"  is  the  only  comparison  that  comes  to  my,, 
mind. 

The  "Gavotte  in  D  Minor"  is  another  poem  in 
this  volume  which  shows  Miss  Lowell's  artistry  at 


AMY  LOWELL  25 

its  very  best.  The  poem  is  too  intricately  wrought  to 
;be  thoroughly  analyzed  here.  But  from  the  signifi 
cant  title  (an  integral  part  of  the  poem  as  every  good 
title  is)  to  the  very  last  line,  every  word  shows  the 
mastery  of  her  workmanship.  The  skilful  way  in 
which  she  makes  fresh  the  old  love-and-above  rhyme, 
the  flexibility  of  the  rhythm,  the  delicate  chime  of 
the  music :  they  are  all  evidence  of  her  control  of  the 
poetic  medium. 

But  no  poet,  alive  or  dead,  can  consistently  main 
tain  a  level  throughout  an  entire  volume.  In  "  Con 
fided  by  a  Yucca"  there  is  a  slight  tendency  to  let 
details  blur  the  main  outline  of  the  poem  (a  fault 
-which  Miss  Lowell  fell  into  in  the  earlier  "The 
Bronze  Horses  ")  and  in  "  A  Legend  of  Porcelain  "  the 
fault  recurs.  Yet,  so  characteristic  of  Miss  Lowell's 
manner  is  the  exquisite  workmanship  of  this  latter 
poem,  I  believe  it  will  be  one  of  the  best  liked  in  the 
volume.  Potentially  it  is  the  most  dainty  in  senti 
ment,  based,  as  it  is,  on  the  legend  of  the  beautiful 
girl  who,  absorbed  in  beauty  and  love,  neglected  the 
rites  which  would  have  kept  the  demons  at  bay,  and 
later  redeemed  her  error  with  labor  and  pain  before 
the  fiery  porcelain  furnaces.  But  the  poet  is  so  en 
tranced  with  the  fragile  beauty,  the  color  and  grace 
fulness  of  the  porcelains  which  Chou-Kiou  paints, 
and  the  exotic  loveliness  of  the  Chinese  civilization, 
that  sometimes  she  seems  to  let  description  over 
weight  the  poem.  Taken  one  by  one  such  passages  are 
equal  to  some  of  the  best  of  Miss  Lowell's  short 
lyrics :  but  in  so  long  a  poem  our  capacity  to  react  to 


26  AMY  LOWELL 

the  dainty  loveliness  is  over-taxed,  unless  perchance 
the  reader  fall  in  love,  as  the  poet  has  done,  with  the 
very  detail,  and  many  readers  will  do  just  this. 

There  are  two  other  groups  of  legends  to  comment 
upon,  those  of  a  European  setting  of  which  "  Gavotte 
in  D  Minor"  is  one,  and  those  of  New  England.  One 
is  tempted  to  exclaim  at  the  insatiable  curiosity  con 
cerning  mankind  which  has  led  Miss  Lowell  into  so 
many  fields,  and  to  wonder  at  her  power  of  making 
them  equally  vivid. 

"Dried  Marjoram"  is  the  old  story  of  Rizpah,  re 
told,  and  retold  by  a  completely  modern  poet.  If 
one  were  asked  to  define  wherein  present-day  poetry 
differs  from  the  poetry  of  the  Victorian  period,  omr 
could  best  explain  by  example,  and  a  trenchant  ex 
ample  would  be  a  comparison  between  "Dried  Mar 
joram"  and  Tennyson's  "Rizpah."  At  the  time  of 
writing  her  poem,  Miss  Lowell  had  never  read  Tenny 
son's,  as  the  "Atlantic"  pointed  out  when  it  pub 
lished  "  Dried  Marjoram."  The  poem  attained  instant 
success,  and  indeed  it  is  one  of  the  most  poignantly 
human  things  that  Miss  Lowell  has  written. 

It  is  said  that  every  poet  must  try  his  hand  at  a 
ballad  at  least  once  in  his  life.  Miss  Lowell's  ballad 
is  "The  Ring  and  the  Castle."  Nothing  could  show 
the  poet's  mastery  over  form  better  than  this  poem. 
When  it  appeared  anonymously  in  the  "  Bookman  "  's 
guessing-the-author  contest,  some  years  ago,  it  en-*"' 
tirely  baffled  the  critics.  It  is  so  absolutely  a  ballad  in 
substance  arid  in  form.  Miss  Lowell  has  said  that 
it  came  out  of  her  inner  consciousness  with  no  proto- 


AMY  LOWELL  27 

type  that  she  can  remember,  which  only  proves  how 
/  closely  related  are  primitive  and  modern  man.  Medi 
aeval  in  subject,  treatment,  and  measure,  "The  Ring 
and  the  Castle"  is  nevertheless  universal,  because 
true  to  the  perennial  humanity  of  man. 

Considered  as  pure  narrative,  "The  Statue  in  the 
Garden"  is  excellent.  Set  in  the  Europe  of  the  pres 
ent  day  with  a  strong  undercurrent  of  Eighteenth 
Century  feeling,  the  form  of  the  poem  is  well  suited 
to  the  material.  The  rather  tight  rhyming  couplets 
fit  the  Eighteenth  Century  motif,  and  the  shifts  into 
free  verse  give  variation  and  a  modern  contrast  be 
fore  the  couplet  has  time  to  weary.  In  the  case  of  a 
..narrative  it  is  not  fair  to  tell  the  story:  it  must  be 
found  in  the  original,  for  "  The  Statue  in  the  Garden  " 
is  told  with  a  zest  and  piquancy  which  cannot  be 
transposed.  It  is  a  study  in  psychology,  with  insanity 
beckoning  the  hero  farther  and  farther  on  through 
his  very  love  of  the  beautiful,  and  of  the  final  surge  of 
human  emotion  by  which  he  is  released. 

"  Four  Sides  to  a  House,"  the  last  poem  in  the  book 
(there  are  eleven  all  told) ,  appeals  to  me  as  the  better 
of  the  two  New  England  poems.  Miss  Lowell's  power 
in  the  handling  of  the  macabre  is  again  called  into 
full  play  along  with  her  dramatic  force.  The  stanza 
employed  is  admirably  adapted  to  her  purposes;  she 
utilizes  the-  crescendo  quality  of  three  successive 
rhymed  lines  to  bring  each  stanza  to  a  wave-crest  of 
power,  and  then  drives  home  the  effect  with  a  final 
unrhymed  line  of  an  abrupter  rhythm.  But  technical 
dexterity  in  the  handling  of  stanza  cannot  alone  make 


28  AMY  LOWELL 

a  poem  satisfying.  A  poem  is  something  more  than  its 
form  and  Miss  Lowell  achieves  that  something  neces-r 
sary  to  make  "Four  Sides  to  a  House"  a  really  fine 
poem,  The  restrained  note  of  terror  is  well  sustained 
and  brought  to  a  climax  in  the  fear  of  the  murderers  as 
they  kill  their  last  horse  —  no  ghostly  thing  can  pass 
a  horse's  skull,  but  they  have  only  three  horses.  And 
the  monosyllabic  simplicity  of  the  conclusion  is  equal 
to  the  rest:  it  is  not  easy  to  round  off  effectively  a 
poem  of  this  nature,  but  Miss  Lowell  does  it. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  "Legends"  will  be  as 
enthusiastically  received  as  was  "Pictures  of  the 
Floating  World.  "^JVIiss  Lowell's  career  has  been  a 
steady  rise,  each  volume  holding  old  friends  and  win,- 
ning  new,  and  there~Ts~ho  sign  that  the  cfesTEas  yet 
be£n  reached^."  Legends  "  shows  all  herder  tility_  of 
i  nyentipn,  all  her  sensitiveness  t.n  the  ^eauty~o>rdeli- 
ll  her  power  oLcoJiuiuLenyisioning,  all 


her  sense  of  the  dramatic,  all  her  sympathy~with  hu1 
TjjjjiiJjinsp  qualities  in  t'actjwhich  have"  not 


onlymade  her  famous,  but  have 


_  lovers  of  poetry^  WheiP1  Can  "Grande^ 
CasTlerappeared  ,  Joseph  E.  Chamberlin  exclaimed 
in  "The  Boston  Transcript"  "We  have  come  to  it  - 
once  Poe  was  the  living  and  commanding  poet,  whose 
things  were  waited  for.  .  .  .  Now  we  watch  and  wrait 
for  Amy  Lowell's  poems."  And  as  "Pictures  of  the 
Floating  World"  was  worth  waiting  and  watching 
for,  so  was  "Legends."  It  has  the  freshness  of  the 
ill  of  the"practiced  artist. 


1921. 


BOOKS  BY 

AMY  LOWELL 


Poetry 
LEGENDS 

^i  vitality,  in  her  zest  for  the  new  and  unexplored,  in  the 
superb  technical  skill  with  which  she  interprets  the  restless  and 
searching  spirit  of  humanity,  Miss  Lowell  mirrors,  as  does  no 
other  poet,  the  soul  of  the  present  age. 

LEGENDS,  her  new  volume,  will  delight  not  only  poetry  lovers, 
but  all  who  enjoy  narratives,  swiftly  moving,  vividly  coloured, 
and  Hamming  with  passion  and  beauty. 

PICTURES  OF  THE  FLOATING  WORLD 

CAN  GRANDE'S  CASTLE 

MEN,  WOMEN  AND  GHOSTS 

SWORD  BLADES  AND  POPPY  SEED 

A  DOME  OF  MANY-COLOURED  GLASS 

Each  $2.00,  except  "A  DOME  OF  MANY-COLOURED  GLASS," 
which  is  $1.75 

Prose 

TENDENCIES  IN  MODERN  AMERICAN  POETRY 
SIX  FRENCH  POETS 

Each  $3.50 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

4  PARK  ST.,  BOSTON         16  E.  40TH  ST.,  NEW  YORK 


AMY  LOWELL 

Some  international  opinion; 
of  her  work 

"Amy  Lowell  brings  a  new  spark  to  American  poetr 
poetry  is  luxuriant,  interwoven,  delicate,  like  the  brt 
park  in  Spring.  .  .  .  Amy  Lowell  represents,  in  the  I 
United  States,  an  already  subtle  civilization."  —  JEA: 
the  Mercure  de  France. 

"Miss  Amy  Lowell's  latest  books  are  splendid.  .  .  . 
doubtedly  one  of  the  really  great  American  poets  of 
day."  —  JOHN  DRINKWATER. 

"  Walt  Whitman  and  Amy  Lowell  are  the  most  widely 
ican  poets  (in  Japan)."  -  -  YONE  NOGUCHI,  Professor 
Literature  at  Keio  Gijuku  University,  Tokyo. 

"The  poise  of  Miss  Lowell's  work  is  the  poise  of  stren; 
the  first  poet  of  our  struggling  age  with  a  rounded  cult. 
European  masters,  and  with  the  aptitude  like  them  to 
the  past,  embrace  the  present  turmoil  of  affairs,  and  3 
her  grip  upon  her  art."  •  —  WALDO  FRANK  in  Our  Ame 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORI 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  I 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
ibject  to  immediate 


DEC    619WEB3019* 


FEBfr?  1 


•7*4 


6*64-7 

Quarter 


